there are no communist parties in the US, except in embyronic or party-building formation, to my understanding (unless you count the CPUSA). if anyone is working to 'overthrow' anything, they certainly won't succeed anyways. the choices are 'America' (the US) or 'America' (social-democratic US) for the time being

i'm not sure if we can apply this logic - we tried working within the confines of regimes such as the United States, Nazi Germany, West Germany, and Israel for many years, if not decades.

even when these movements were Marxist, they failed or denigrated into American chauvinism/nationalism, Strasserism and National Bolshevism, petit-bourgeois idealism, and Labor Zionism - respective to the list, in that order.

that's not to say we don't care, but previous orgs had material basis for their success.

The Black Panthers (+ BLA), Brown Berets, Young Lords, American Indian Movement were leading the struggle - it was through their collective struggle that they were able to assist the Young Patriots and the student groups to form the correct line and analysis

I, for one, am not interested in treating Donald Trump like some political outsider, as if I can take the 'America' and leave the Trump; take the 'Nazi Germany' and leave the Hitler; take the 'Israel' and leave the Netanyahu

this isn't just about 'overthrowing the government' - the program of the Communist party is not coupist - and we aren't populists, either

i'm trying to think up a method or a book that'd be helpful to work from, but i don't want to limit Marx to philosophy

maybe trying these strategies with something light, but theory-heavy enough, would be helpful. for that i would recommend reading Chapter 1 of Walter Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa. Feel free to work through other portions as you please, or if you feel necessary, like the Introduction.

There's also Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Freire, and Development as Modernity by Lushaba

for the purposes of a book club, though, i'm sure The Communist Manifesto and Principles of Communism will be alright. When you discuss with other people, you'll learn a lot faster. They'll pick up on details that you won't, and vice versa.

PS: I forgot to mention that Capital, at least the first volume, will be required at some point; and also, Theses on Feuerbach is deceptively short, each 'thesis' is densely packed info, I did not know this and, as a result, didn't really understand any thesis except the last

i would keep it simple and limited, when it comes to theory. The Communist Manifesto, Principles of Communist, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Civil War in France, Critique of the Gotha Programme, Capital Vol. 1 - that's more than enough. if you like, you can replace Capital with books like Lenin's Imperialism or State and Revolution.

something i would keep in mind - at the end of the day Marx was true to his roots as a philosopher. i would be surprised if you can pick up an 'introductory' or 'easy' text by Marx without taking notes and reading a second or third time.

when reading, questions you may ask: "Marx argues [point], but why? Is this argument convincing? There are a lot of words I'm familiar with here, is he using them in the common sense, or is he referencing something else? Is that his own theory and what he personally believes, or is he making a point about another thinker (i.e., Proudhon, Hegel, Smith, Ricardo, Lassalle, Feuerbach)? What assumptions is he making? Why should I believe this? Why do I agree/disagree with this?"

If you agree with everything you read on first encounter, without questioning or doubting it, you might've misread something or you might be missing context. I, for example, had to read Critique of the Gotha Programme multiple times because on first time I was careless and failed to distinguish between Lassalle and Marx, and the second time I failed to distinguish between 'wealth' and 'value' - both mistakes are so wrong I would've been better reading nothing.

read hegel, play disco elysium. play disco elysium, read marx

hegel's revolutionary plasm

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"In the dark times, should the stars also go out?"

damn so im not the only one who read some Camus recently? i'm not even an existentialist, i just find the work comforting

UnitedHealthcare is so awful I have to defend ABA

Richard Spencer will never have a successful idea

"a pure, free anarchist lifestyle that rejects old left ideas of class struggle"

so now China is the one doing free trade, globalization, and tech export; the West is doing trade protectionism, nationalism, and inhibition of foreign industry

I can see why people are confused about the definition of capitalism

What are the consequences for this arrangement, though, as we see more governments make a pivot ala Milei, Bukele?

damn. time to spin up nostalgic hits of the last two or three decades again.

Godspeed, soldier o7

CEO. Joseph Heller novel. Among Us.

the wealthiest...

You're not the only one. Another fall/winter like this and I think I'll be at rock bottom. Normally I'd be knocked like like 4-5 hours ago, not so much anymore. It's not even the reduced hours of sleep getting to me either, the quality is shit as well. Waking up is terrible.

Is this a depression thing, or anxiety, or what?

fucking awful

Did all the sanctions get lifted in exchange for humanitarian aid?

He was mostly alright, but his significance really comes from popularizing and formulating what is now known as Marxism-Leninism.

As a result of mounting internal and external pressure, as well as the power-struggle following Lenin's death, Stalin had to make countless concessions to deal with problems that could not be avoided.

Because of his role leading a country that was led into, and greatly harmed by war (tens of millions of deaths as a result), it can be very challenging to get an appropriate critique and analysis of his role. You are not going to find any example of peaceful revolution, nor will you find any examples of countries in a state of war that can grant complete freedom and liberty.

I defend him to the extent that he led a struggle against European fascism, and I defend him against accusations that Marxism and fascism are the same. Going so far to condemn Stalin generally has a tendency to grant a certain level of forgivenes and apologia for fascists and their collaborators, as well as a wide assortment of reactionaries and nationalists.

When it comes to people who would be identified as "Stalinists", usually what is meant is something more similar to what we would call National Bolsheviks (NazBols). If not that, then in reference to the tendency of certain Marxist-Leninist groups to justify social conservatism, petty nationalism, and premature centralization.

One thing I'd like to touch on: the experience of the Bolsheviks told us that we need unity of Marxists, where we exclude the distorters of Marx. If you want to be a Marxist, you need Marx - no way around that. Stalin had to read Marx's major works, Lenin did so and more, and so did Trotsky, Luxembourg, even Kautsky and Bernstein.

Any major revolutionary figure is going to be smeared and distorted for someone else's gain. People still hate Robespierre, for instance, and people still try to rewrite the narrative of people from Nat Turner to Huey P. Newton - Stalin was no different. You don't have to defend him at all, nor do you have to condemn him (or any other historical figure), but you should at least understand the real Stalin and understand that the USSR was born out of the ashes of the Russian Empire - generally for worse as we came closer and closer to its dissolution. If you don't care to catch the full story, you are going to be clueness when it comes to any revolutionary movement across the Americas, especially the US. You can try to overcorrect or overly emphasize how much you don't like Stalin, if you'd like, but remember that Stalin's opposition and the leftists who opposed the initial October Revolution were well on their way to make mistakes in the complete opposition direction - equally as harmful and destructive. That doesn't make you superior, it makes you blind. Stalin's errors were far from the only possibility.

It could've went way worse, or it could've been far better off - which would you prefer?

europe/EU needs to start regulating these twitter bots ASAP

we are constantly moving closer and further away from socialism, at least since the French Revolution (which we didn't get to see the full results and aftermath of until the Scramble for Africa and World War I, and the later post-WWII neocolonialism).

the conditions are already present, too, from Kenya and Swaziland, to Cuba and Mexico, to Palestine and Syria. I can't name any continent sans Antarctica that has failed to produce some resemblence of progression towards socialism, and i'd even say it has happened within every state on earth by this point.

it is both fortunate and unfortunate that it is an international phenomenon. success in one country could be disasterous failure in another and, ultimately, it is our responsibility to elevate class consciousness and oppose our national bourgeois classes. but a social-democratic reform somewhere means a nationalism somewhere else, one progressive and the other reactionary in no particular order.

we had progress toward socialism this week, reaction against it today; last week was reverse. and so on and so forth.

you could've asked this question regarding 60 months, 60 years, 60 decades, 60 centuries - my answer would've been the same.

like the Russian Revolution completed the French, I see another revolution completing the Chinese, from the oppressed people of America and the oppressed people of Africa